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IMC is the process of developing and implementing various forms of persuasive communication programs with customers and prospects over time. The goal of IMC is to influence or directly affect the behaviour of the selected audience. IMC considers all sources of brand or company contacts which a customer or prospect has with the product or service as potential delivery

channels for future messages. Further, IMC makes use of all forms of communication which are relevant to the customer or prospect, and to which they might be receptive. In sum, the IMC process starts with the customer or prospect and then works back to determine and define the forms and methods through which persuasive communications methods should be developed

Prolific author Tom Duncan stated simply that IMC is:

a process for managing the customer relationships that drive brand value. More specifically, it is a cross-functional process for creating and nourishing profitable relationships with customers and other stakeholders by strategically controlling or influencing all messages sent to these groups and encouraging data-driven, purposeful dialogue with them.

Note that this definition is also focused on building dialogues and relationships between brands and customers, stakeholders, or prospects . That dialogue or relationship is built, apparently, on some form of data-base – collected, collated, massaged, manipulated, and updated regularly. Messages depend for their validity and meaning on the extent to which the organization has correctly understood the buyer or prospects position, and created the forms of persuasive communication necessary to inculcate behaviour.

Schultz and Kitchen developed their own definition, repeated here for convenience. It resembles that of Duncan, and indicates the move toward integrated communication at the corporate level, as well as at the individual brand level: IMC is a strategic business process used to plan, develop, execute, and evaluate coordinated, measurable, persuasive brand communication programs over time with consumers, customers, prospects, and other targeted individuals.